


His Brother

by wellthatsood



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Growing Up, Historical References, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Introspection, POV Minor Character, Protective Siblings, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 20:25:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16839784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellthatsood/pseuds/wellthatsood
Summary: His brother knew him, too. Where he was ticklish, the kind of dumb jokes that made him laugh, which sweets were his favorite. They never had the money for it, but his brother’s fingers were quick and Bart was no snitch and they’d duck around the corner to savor the taste or else risk a smack for them both. His mother fretted about things like that; his father yelled about things like that; Bart didn’t have anything to say either way. It was just enough to share that wicked grin as they crouched against the brick of an alley wall, silent and savoring and complicit.--A character study of Charlie's life, from the perspective of his brother





	His Brother

**Author's Note:**

  * For [therestisdetail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestisdetail/gifts).



> A plotless, introspective birthday fic for @therestisdetail, who’s exchanged many a headcanon with me about Charlie and his brother Bart. So here’s to the non-character we’ve discussed and here’s to you, for being an all-around sweet and wonderful and supportive person <3 
> 
> [Originally posted 2016 on tumblr [here](http://goatsandgangsters.tumblr.com/post/143194577069/a-plotless-introspective-very-belated-birthday); crossposting to ao3 for archival purposes]

He knew a lot about his brother—particularly the shape of his elbows, knobby and sharp and right in Bart’s back in the middle of the night. They were used to each other, to filling the same space, the same cramped bed that creaked when they rolled and the mattress that sagged and smelled of the damp. His brother slept against the wall, absorbing the draft from their one window, but he had the safety of someone beside him, of something sturdy on either side. Bart didn’t mind facing the room; he never rolled too close to the edge. In the mornings, when the faintest stream of light trickled through the dirt-clouded windows, when their mother fussed at the table inches from Bart’s nose, when his still-sleeping brother rolled and grumbled and tried to melt into their threadbare blanket, he didn’t mind. 

His brother knew him, too. Where he was ticklish, the kind of dumb jokes that made him laugh, which sweets were his favorite. They never had the money for it, but his brother’s fingers were quick and Bart was no snitch and they’d duck around the corner to savor the taste or else risk a smack for them both. His mother fretted about things like that; his father yelled about things like that; Bart didn’t have anything to say either way. It was just enough to share that wicked grin as they crouched against the brick of an alley wall, silent and savoring and complicit.

They were almost always the same size, though Bart had his growth spurt first, and he lorded his new gangly height over his brother. They wore the same clothes, swapping shirts and trousers of rough, coarse fabric between them. They’d been doing that since they were children, when there was a different kind of dirt that lived in their shirts and their skin. His brother didn’t remember it—or maybe he just pretended not to, the way he pretended he’d spent every day with New York pavement under his feet. They were running and playing on a Sunday, in shirts that weren’t nice but were nicer than usual, and it was just a playful push that sent his brother toppling back into the dirty fountain in the square. Bart swapped shirts with him, taking the blame and the lecture, because he was in trouble enough, his brother, even at that age. But back then it was just childish pranks, fidgeting during Mass with swinging legs smacking the pew in front and playing too rough in the dirt that caked over everything and hung in the air.

*****

There was a lot Bart never knew. He didn’t know how his brother got the money stashed in an old pair of socks beneath their worn out mattress; he knew, but not exactly. “Ran an errand,” was all his brother ever said, snappish and bristling and already darting to the next conversation, his back against the wall too easily. Sometimes that was true, Bart knew, since he’d made a few coins himself for the big men in the nice suits—but they made such a fuss about it, his parents, so Bart stopped. His brother didn’t. It was little things they asked of the kids in the neighborhood, running down to the corner store or grabbing the day’s paper. He knew that’s how it started, how it escalated as his brother grew in height and in strength, how he slipped more into his pockets than just candy from the store.

The extra money, the gleaming cufflinks with someone else’s initials, the ever-circulating flow of goods and cash—he knew that wherever it came from, it wasn’t good. But he never said anything. Bart only hid it better, wrapped it tighter, shoved it farther under the mattress, because he knew how much worse it would be if their father found it.

And he did find out, sometimes, when his brother wasn’t careful. But he learned lessons from the back of his hand faster than he ever learned in school, and before long, Bart stopped noticing anything under their mattress at all—but he still saw the evidence carefully concealed, when his brother’s shoes had fresh laces, when his collar was whiter, when he grinned with lopsided self-satisfaction and dabbed off dirt from a scuffle on the edge of a handkerchief that he furtively stuffed in his pocket, out of sight.

“You’re makin’ some real money with Goodman, huh?” Bart asked him.

“Yeah,” his brother said with a smirk, and the look in his eye was all he needed to know that the money wasn’t coming from a hat shop.

*****

He didn’t know why his brother wanted to be called Charlie. He didn’t know why he turned in his sleep more than ever, why he mumbled things Bart was never meant to hear. He jumped more, he woke with a start when Bart tried to quiet his midnight mumbling, and he came home less and less. And he didn’t go back to the hat shop. And it wasn’t long until he didn’t come home at all anymore.

Bart had the bed to himself for a short time, until he saved enough to move out too, sweeping up mustache trimmings every morning and cleaning out the barber shop every night until he could wake up in his own bed. It was the same bed, with the dampness stains, but it was in his own apartment, and there was never anything hidden under the mattress. It was enough for him. It was enough to work each day, to make enough to keep from going hungry, to live in a small apartment that felt huge in its emptiness, without the scuffle of siblings tripping over one another and elbows vying for the sink to wash. It was quiet; it _felt_ quiet, with only noises from the street and never any yelling from within. It was enough for Bart.

He saw his brother— _Charlie_ —less and less as the years stretched on. Bart visited him, at first, coming to the dingy apartment that he was so proud of, that he filled with himself. He laughed louder in those walls, smiled bigger, and there was nothing there to silence him. Bart didn’t ask about the new suit. Bart didn’t ask how he paid his rent on the little room with the floorboards that squeaked. He never asked, because Charlie wouldn’t answer, because he was too busy trying to show off what was finally his, and Bart couldn’t—wouldn’t—quiet him with questions. It was a good little apartment, but it wasn’t enough for Charlie.

*****

Bart knew what to do when Charlie got into trouble—drugs again. He answered the phone to his brother’s panicked voice; he was trying to speak calmly, but there was a gruffness like he hadn’t slept and an urgency for Bart to understand, to listen. And he spoke in Sicilian, which he never did if he could avoid it, stressing over and over an address. _Go there, grab the box, don’t open it, please don’t open it, move it, do it right away, right now, can you do this for me?_

He went. He opened it. He wasn’t surprised. But he did what Charlie asked all the same, knowing what happened last time, not knowing how bad it was but knowing that it was bad enough. He didn’t think about what his parents would say if they knew how much heroin he’d carried in his arms, down the street, like it was nothing—wondering if that was every day for his brother. He didn’t think about the way his mother would twist her hands around a ragged dish towel, the way the kitchen chair would hit the floor with a thud if there was nothing nearer for his father to hit. He tried not to think about the dampness in his palms, his eyes on the sidewalk, one foot in front of the other, already fearing what would happen if someone stopped _him_. But no one did.

He did it for Charlie. And he never said thank you. But he showed up two weeks later carrying a brand new suit that “didn’t fit him anymore” and asking if Bart wanted it. It fit him perfectly in the shoulders, even though he was wider than his brother. It was nicer than anything he’d ever touched and he could tell it had never been worn, but he accepted anyway—because Charlie looked so uncertain on the threshold, shifting from foot to foot, willing Bart to accept a gesture in lieu of what he couldn’t say.

He hardly ever wore it—and never in front of their parents, who would have asked. Or who would have looked at his brother with suspicion, and they would be right. They all wanted Charlie to do what was right—and sure, Bart wanted that too, but maybe he had more of his mother in him than he realized. He couldn’t bring himself to lecture, not with the memory of someone else’s nightmares ringing in his ears. It was wrong, what his brother did, and Bart wished he wouldn’t. But maybe he was more their mother than their father; maybe doing wrong didn’t mean someone should hurt.

*****

Charlie moved into nicer apartments—hotels, even—and Bart didn’t. Bart got married, got up early, saw to his customers. Charlie didn’t. They both ran their businesses. They found success on their own terms; they saw failure in each other.

The time lengthened between their visits. Bart looked forward to holidays; his brother looked at the door, always keeping an exit in view. He was conspicuous in a suit that wasn’t his best, but was better than anyone else’s, as the family crowded around the same small table in the same small apartment.

But still they’d laugh after dinner, sitting with heads bent together on the sagging cushions of the couch in the corner. Though there was always something unspoken between them. It hung in the air at the edge of every laugh, as it faded into silence, into a glance. There was always something in the furtive look in his eyes, when he’d press an envelope of bills into Bart’s hands and say, “Take care of her,” with a nod to their mother washing up at the sink. She would never accept the money from him—they both knew that—but Bart found a way to use it.

*****

Bart’s customers liked him. It wasn’t long until he had his own barbershop, his own customers, the regulars who always came to him for a shave, because they liked him. An easy manner, that’s what they said about him. He could make a conversation with anyone through the suds and the razor; it was a good skill for a barber to have. Somebody called him charming once, and he laughed. He didn’t say anything about it; he wasn’t in the habit of disagreeing with customers. It was a little life, but it suited him just fine. A steady business, a wife at home, food on the table—it was almost like being an American.

He didn’t know when his brother got so big. They called him different names—Luciano and Lucky in the papers—and Jesus, his brother was in the papers. He could read his name—his newest one—over the shoulders of the men who sat in his barber chair. Like he was famous. Like he was somebody.

And one day, the papers told him something he never wanted to read, something that had lurked in the back of his mind since his brother stopped delivering hats. He never closed the barbershop early, but he did that day. Everything passed in a blur of hospitals and waiting and men standing guard, men who wouldn’t let him pass, big silent men who held their hands like they were always ready to reach for a gun. They were stuck in the perpetual motion of vigilance, gruff and wordless.

They only let him into the room when his brother was conscious enough to make them. They only let him into the room when they had passed their hands over his body, searching for a weapon he’d never owned, never touched. When they were kids, people always said they looked exactly alike, him and his brother, but he was starting to doubt the resemblance.

When he finally saw him, upright in bed at last, gauze wrapped tight around his head, Bart knew he wasn’t the same scrawny kid sleeping scrunched against the wall. He offered a weak smile with the half-mouth Bart could see, a haze of morphine surrounding every bruise and cut and abrasion. He thought the bruises of their childhood were bad, but they were nothing compared to the slouch in his shoulders, the wince with every motion, the heaviness in his movements that had never been there before. They didn’t say much—or anything—to each other but Bart sat with him.

*****

They saw each other less and less frequently. They still had holidays, in the same tenement where they had slept as children, elbows and knees knocking at the other, fighting over one blanket, glad for the other’s warmth in the winter and struggling for air in the stifling summers. Their mother fussed over him more than usual, her weary hands gentle as she touched the side of his face. He was different, stiller, smiled more slowly.

They saw each other at the funeral. Charlie took care of the arrangements, bought the plot of land, and they all bid farewell to their mother. They stood shoulder to shoulder, Charlie sleek in a black overcoat, Bart beside him.

Bart moved their father from the tenement, saying goodbye to what had been more home to him than to Charlie, but hardly home to either of them. Their father moved out of the city, with their sister, and Charlie did not come to holidays anymore. But he would stop by to see Bart sometimes, in Brooklyn. It was rare, but he always came with gifts on birthdays, especially for Bart’s son, Salvatore.

He saw Charlie once, a few years later. He looked as though he hadn’t slept. “You been readin’ the papers?” was all he asked, voice low and groggy. Bart nodded. Charlie jotted down a name, passed the paper to Bart, and said, “If I don’t—if you need anythin’ and I’m—he’ll make sure you got everything you need.” The name sounded familiar.

They saw each other less and less often. Bart had never been in a prison before. His brother lost weight, looked worn, with none of his usual verve. Except the moment he saw Bart, he was nothing but wide grins and a false facade of exuberance. “Me? I’m runnin’ this joint,” he said with a flourish of his hand, gesturing to the grey stone all around them. It was hard to leave him like that.

They saw each other again, after a decade of sporadic visits behind heavy walls. It had been years since he saw his brother cry, but he did, as they hugged and said farewell, as Charlie thanked him for the clothes and belongings Bart had brought for him. It was odd, to stand on Ellis Island again. Odder still to think of his memories nearing the shore, just a small boy with the sea spray in his face and everything ahead of him—fear and excitement and joy and wonder. “I’ll be back,” his brother assured him, casting a wistful glance across the water at a city that could have been his. “Before you know it.”

It was the first time Bart had been to Italy since leaving it as a boy. It wasn’t the same as he remembered—not where Charlie lived, anyway. Maybe it wasn’t as nice as those fancy New York hotels, but it was still better than anything Bart had known. They talked, more than Bart had ever remembered talking to his brother in their adult years. About everything, anything. Horse races. The food. The war. Commenting on people as they passed. Charlie asked about his kids, often. Charlie asked if he’d seen anything good at the pictures. Sometimes people stared at them, the Americans, speaking English, and it felt strange, backwards.

On his last day, Charlie jotted a few notes for him. “I need you to do me a favor.”

It was like when they were kids. Running errands, delivering messages, going down to the corner store—only it wasn’t the corner anymore, but an ocean. And it wasn’t for pennies; it was for Charlie. He would never be more involved than that, passing along a few words, asking no questions. Just like when they were kids. Bart had come to recognize the people his brother knew, those kinds of people, by more than the niceness of their suits. He could tell in the way they moved, the way they kept an eye on the door, the wariness when they saw a stranger, the fondness when they realized who sent him.

*****

Bart was getting old. Italy was so far away. His thoughts didn’t stray far beyond Brooklyn, beyond the turning wheel of his everyday. He had lived well in America. A wife, his children, a business that was enough for him. Even as his body slowed, his hair grayed, his eyesight went bad, the years had been good to him, he felt. He had lived better than his parents. He had not lived as well as some. But he had lived.

He saw his brother one more time, in Italy. It wasn’t the same as before. There were no more conversations to have. Bart made the arrangements; he took care of everything. He saw him back across the ocean, to New York, like he always wanted.


End file.
